During certain medical procedures and hospitalization, patients are often connected to multiple devices and fluid sources for the purposes of monitoring, providing medications, and so forth. Such lines are interfaced to the patient's body through catheters, intravenous and fluid lines, EKG signal lines, and other types of tubing. Many of these lines and tubes are connected to the patient during transport, and have a tendency to become entangled and confused. Also, particularly when turning comers, and so forth, through more narrow hospital corridors or past other patients having similar connections, there is a risk that lines will be disturbed or even disconnected if caught on a projection. A mass of entangled lines and tubes also gives family members and loved ones anxious feelings when seeing a patient treated in this manner.
There have been several proposals to arrange intravenous lines, and the like, but thus far all such proposals have been intended to label rather than protect the various/signal carrying conduits. Examples include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,795,429; 4,988,062; 5,224,674; 5,336,179; and 5,876,371. Using the latter of these as representative, an intravenous tube holder for use in a trauma unit or similar environment, includes an element having a plurality of tracks, each designed to secure an intravenous tube and writing surface next to each track to identify content and/or dosage information. Each element has a male extension and female indent for interconnecting additional elements to accommodate a greater number of intravenous tubes.
Although mechanisms of this kind help with labeling and identifying various lines, they do nothing to protect these tubes and wires lengthwise from becoming overly entangled and caught up on projections or other articles during transport. The need therefore remains for a simple but effective means to both organize and protect intravenous lines and tubes to ensure a tidy yet functional arrangement.